One of the duties of a lineman is pulling large wire cables. Currently, a lineman attaches a press device to the cable to be pulled. The press device is in turn attached to a line hook. The line hook is then attached to the hoist hook of a hoist.
In some instances, truck-mounted or truck-pulled, trailer-mounted winches are appropriate for pulling the cable. In such instances, trucks have to have accessibility to the area where the pulling is to occur. Thus, in the first instance, such truck-mounted winches are unavailable for off-road or aerial use. Moreover, it is costly to outfit a truck with such a winch for general maintenance use. Further, such truck-mounted winches occupy much-needed storage space for other maintenance equipment. An example of such a trailer-mounted winch is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,781 (issued to Sauber).
More frequently than truck-mounted winches, portable ratchet hoists are used by linemen. Examples of portable, manual, ratchet-type hoists are made by Coffing® (a division of Yale Industrial Products, Inc.), AB Chance (a division of Hubbell® Power Systems), or Maasdam Pow'R-Pull, Inc. Such manual hoists have a hoist hook and a fixing hook. The fixing hook is attached to a fixture, such as a pole or tree. The hoist hook is attached to the hoist by a chain. Once the hoist hook and fixing hook are attached to the line hook and fixture, respectively, slack is taken out of the line through a lever action applied to a ratchet rotating the chain take-up wheel.
In order to drive the ratchet, a lineman uses his or her arm, preferably driving the lever with proper body mechanics on each stroke. Use of the ratchet has resulted in chronic motion injury such as “tennis elbow” (also known as lateral epicondylitis), rotator cuff tears, shoulder strains, and tendinitis. These injuries are well known in the industry.
A portable, powered line-pulling apparatus facilitating easy and safe cable pulling would be an important improvement in the art.